


undue diligence

by eggstasy



Series: Blood Gulch Freelancers [3]
Category: Red vs. Blue
Genre: Blood Gulch Freelancers, F/M, funny up until it's not
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-18
Updated: 2016-03-18
Packaged: 2018-05-27 13:16:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,355
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6286147
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eggstasy/pseuds/eggstasy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Alpha spends so much of his day talking.  Good thing he loves the sound of his voice.</p>
            </blockquote>





	undue diligence

Tex hates being without a body.

She’s not like him; he loves it.  Or rather, he loves having the entire station as his body.  He loves integrating himself with every open system, he loves spreading out his observational awareness to include all the monitoring equipment available to him, he loves that feeling of being everywhere and knowing everything and being able to act accordingly to any situation.  He’s pretty sure it’s in part a lowkey obsession with being omniscient that the Director has shown on very frequent occasion, but Alpha likes to think he’s less obvious about it.  Probably because he gets what he wants.

Tex though, she hates it.  She’ll upload herself once in a while to run security, make sure all the doors and windows are locked so to speak, but she never stays long.  It used to be a little lonely, but he adapted.  He’s everywhere all the time, so if he ever wants to talk to her or check up on her, he can just find her.

Now though, while R&D performs an overhaul on her physical body, she’s stuck on lockdown and making it very obvious how displeased she is by fucking up annoying things like his physical inventory counts and his requisition lists.  “Tex, knock it off!  God damn it, stop annoying me.”

“This is _your_ fault,” she accuses, drifting on from his inventory databases to muck about in the agents’ correspondence folders.

“Hey, get outta there!”

She radiates disdain.  “You were in there first.”

“I have to go through outbound shit to make sure there’s nothing sensitive-  Stop it!  Oh my god.  If I find an agent who’ll house you until your body is done will you leave me the fuck alone?”

Tex pauses.  She doesn’t like riding bitch, but Alpha knows she hates being left to wander the station’s systems even more.  “ _Not_ Carolina.  Or Rhode-”

“Just tell me your top five and I’ll check with them.”

“I don’t even _like_ five of them.  Virginia and Montana are okay.”  She buzzes thoughtfully, spreading herself out into the security cam feed as she thinks and Alpha tries really hard not to let her notice how wonderful he finds it when she actually _works_ as an AI.  She might vastly prefer punching things, but she can be just as impressive as him when she puts her mind to it.  It's just that she really, really doesn't like to.  “I guess Iowa, but he doesn’t like me so he’ll probably say no.”

“Iowa likes _everybody._ ”

“Not me.”  She curls back into herself, a singular entity once again.  “Montana or Virginia.  Try Iowa if you want.  …Idaho if we’re desperate, at least he’s scared of me.”

Alpha conveys eye-rolling to her before pulling up their frequencies.

 

* * *

 

“Hey Virg, look alive.”

Virginia rolls over and buries her face into her pillow.

“…Virginia.  Vir- oh my god, is that a naked SPARTAN in your doorway?”

Her blankets flutter to the ground in her hurry to sit up, but really in retrospect she probably shouldn’t have fallen for that.  In her defense, she _is_ still half asleep.  “You asshole!  Don’t get a girl’s hopes up like that.”

“My heart bleeds for you.”  Alpha sounds, as always, deeply unimpressed with his charges.  “Tex needs to implant in someone until her body’s done.  You up for it?”

Virginia gathers up her blankets in her lap again, yawning.  “Sure, no problem.  She’s cool with me getting off with her in my head, right?  Or because of it?  Because that’s hot.”

There’s a pause a moment too long before Alpha returns flatly, “Yeah she said forget it.  Go back to sleep.”

 

* * *

 

“Yo, Montana-” _BLAM_ “-na im-” _BLAM_ “- _ex_?”

 _BLAM_ “What was that?”

“Mon-” _BLAM_ “You.”  _BLAM_ “-nt Te-” _BLAM_ “-es?”

 _BLAM BLAM._   “You got a seein’ problem, Mr. Roboto?  Can’t you tell I’m in the middle of somethin’?  _I can’t hear you_.”

“Oh my god THEN STOP FUCKING FIRING AND LISTEN TO ME FOR A SECOND!”  When Montana reluctantly lowers his shotgun and pauses the simulation Alpha sighs.  “And blindness.  You’re thinking of blindness.”

What is it with computers and their need to go on non-sequitors?  It’s like they just love to hear themselves talk.  “Holy Helen Keller, wouldja get to the point!  I’ve got some simulated murder to conduct!”

“Speaking of that, stop making all the enemies look like Michigan, seriously.  Or at least scrub the log later so nobody can tell.  We’ve talked about this.”

“We talk about a lotta shit,” Montana grunts.

“Yeah.  Trust me, I noticed.  Do you want to implant Tex until her body’s done?”

“Does she mind helpin’ me shoot Grif in the face over and over and _over_ again?”

“Nnno, I don’t think that’ll be a problem.  Except for the fact that you _should not be using images of your teammates in sim training._   If Carolina comes in here she’ll beat both your asses.”

Tex’s voice chimes in, vicious and gleeful.  “I would _love_ to see her try.”

“The little lady doesn’t mind!  Let’s do it.”

“Okay, I’m stepping in on account of putting you two together is a recipe for me filling out a shitton more paperwork than I want to.  Forget it.”

“ _Church_ you asshole.”

“Cowardly calculator!”

“Nerdy little wimp.”

“Pencil-pushin’ pussy willow!”

“Nice alliteration,” Tex says appreciatively.

“Oh my god, now this _definitely_ isn’t happening.”

 

* * *

 

“Are you guys seriously having a _tea party?_ ”

“Church,” Massachusetts shouts up at the ceiling.  Church said once that he liked that Massachusetts always did that.  Said it made him feel important and some other big words that basically meant like a god.  Church being happy is a good thing, so Massachusetts decided to keep doing it.  “Do you want to tea party with us?”

“Absolutely never, dude.  Io, man, Tex needs someone to implant in until- Uh okay, nevermind.  She said she doesn’t want to if you’re just gonna sit around drinking tea for hours.”

“How rude!  We’re not _just_ drinking tea.  We’re also discussing some really hot topics!  Current events, Levo Levella’s budding career- you know she’s a triple threat, right?  And we’re also talking all about our _feelings_ -”

“Aaaand that’s a hard no from her.  Thanks anyway.”

“Oh, oh!”  Mass thrusts his hand into the air and waves it.  “Church!  Tex can plant in me if she wants!  I am _extremely_ good soil.”

“Couple problems with that.  Did you forget?”

Massachusetts falters.  _Did_ he forget?  What is he supposed to remember?  He glances at Iowa pleadingly.  Iowa is so nice, he’ll let him know.  “You’re not supposed to implant any AI,” Iowa stage-whispers.

 _Oh._   “Ah, right.”  Massachusetts deflates.  “I _did_ forget about that.”

“Also, you’re involved in that tea party.  The one we just discussed, that she doesn’t want to do because it’s boring.”

“ _Right,_ right.”  Massachusetts sighs.  “Okay.  I’m sorry we can’t help.”

Texas’s voice answers him, which is confusing until he realizes she must also be a god right now.  “Want to help me test out my body once it’s fixed, Chus?” 

Massachusetts perks.  “Are you gonna be a mean girl for it?”

Church and Tex answer together, “Yeah, probably.” 

Massachusetts loves it when they do that.  It makes him feel happy inside.  “Okay, I will help!  Get better soon, Tex!”

“Sure.”

Iowa pours them both another cup of tea and nudges the plate full of the tiny PBJ sandwiches across the table toward him.  “You’re a pretty nice guy, Mr. Massachusetts.”

Massachusetts sips his tea primly.  “Thank you for noticing, Mr. Omaha.  You are nice also.”

"...I think Omaha's in Nebraska, actually."

"What, really? Aww."

"But you were close!"

 

* * *

 

Two seconds into searching for Idaho through the station’s monitoring equipment, Texas is gone.  Alpha finds her mislabeling his annual report folder.  “Tex!  Stop it god damn it, I have to submit those in an hour!  God, what’s the matter with you?!”  She drifts off again without answering his question and Alpha seriously considers going to the trouble of building a mission simulation just to get her off his back.

 _“Don’t,”_ she warns, suddenly there and looming over him.

Alpha recoils.  “What the hell, why not?  You love those.”

Tex doesn’t answer, sitting sullen in his space and-

“You’re worried about me,” Alpha realizes suddenly, and with no small amount of glee.  When she flares with indignation he knows it’s true.  “You’re still worried about the experiments.  That’s why you keep fucking up my databases.  You want me to do all this mindnumbing deskwork so I don’t overtax myself.”

Tex’s annoyance burns like old coals.  She hates it when he reads her.  “You’re an idiot.”

“That was so weak!  Holy shit, you love me soooo much, you wanna- _hey hey_ don’t delete those!  You bitch, I spent hours organizing that data!”

"Then stop being an ass," she accuses, pulling back out of his reports.  "You're not as slick as you think you are."

"I don't know what the fuck you're talking about," Alpha grumbles, attempting to salvage what she'd so happily and readily destroyed.

"If you don't talk to me about it, you better find someone else.  Or I'm going to take matters into my own hands."

The problem is that she absolutely will, and nobody will be happy if she does.  Least of all her.  "Okay.  Fine.  Just.  Let me finish this up first."

 

* * *

 

“Really.  You’re fine with it?”

“Uh, yeah, why wouldn’t I be?”

“Because you find her terrifying and you squeak whenever she so much as lifts a hand near you?”

“Okay first of all, I do not _squeak._   I make like- you know, like a startled noise.”

“Right, like a squeak.”

“ _No._   And secondly, she’s not gonna be in her body, right?  So it’s not like she can beat me up.”

“Yeah, but like.  Dude, she’s a girl.  She’s a girl, all up in your brainspace.  That’s okay with you?”

“I mean, if she was a _girl_ girl I might be a little nervous, but-”

“What the fuck do you mean I’m not a _girl_ girl?”

“ _Shit fuck!_   Church you prick, you didn’t say she was listening!”

 “Haha!  _Oh hohoho_ dude, oh man I cannot wait to sit in on the next battle royale.”

“You better watch out, Ida.  ‘s been looking kinda dirty in the training room, so I’m gonna _wipe the floor with you._ ”

“You two are assholes!”

 

* * *

 

“Instructor?”

The Instructor doesn’t often get contacted directly by the Project’s AI.  She’s pretty sure he’s scared of her.  Or embarrassed of himself, which he _should_ be.  She supposes she can’t blame him entirely, it’s not as if he did what he did on purpose and…well.  Look at where he came from.

Most of their correspondence is in text; the few times she’s heard his voice, he wasn’t speaking directly to her and he’d always log off almost immediately after her arrival.  Definitely embarrassed.  Or shy.

Shy’s kind of cute, she guesses.  If that’s what it is.

Still, she has too much on her plate to go around wondering about how the some AI feels about her.  As long as he continues to work efficiently, keeps their program running and keeps her agents safe, she doesn’t give a shit about how he wants to act around her.  It’s pointless to dwell on that sort of crap anyway.  Life is far too short.

So it’s not exactly a _shock_ when he contacts her directly but it’s definitely a surprise, enough of one for her to momentarily set aside her work.  “Is that you Alpha?  I can’t be sure, since you’ve never actually bothered trying to talk to me.”  That doesn’t mean she’ll make it easy on him though.

“Yeah, well.  Sorry, I’ll try to pencil you into my daily schedule.”  The sarcasm is exactly the same.  Thank god he didn’t also emulate Leonard’s voice.  That would’ve been way too weird.  “I just wanted to ask you something.”

“Is it about the Project?”

“No, it’s…it’s personal.”

If Price was here he’d be shitting himself in excitement.  Anything Alpha does that’s outside of his normal behavioral parameters is like catnip to that nerd.  Maybe she’ll save this conversation for later bribing purposes.  “Alright, you’ve got my attention.  Shoot.”

“Has the Director- has he ever sleepwalked?”

Okay, not what she was expecting.  “Why the hell’re you asking me?  Ask Leonard.”

“I can’t ask him.  He’ll make a big fuckin’ deal out of it.”

Well, he would.  She can’t deny his flair for the dramatics.

“I was hoping you’d just tell me.”

“Why, because I’m just the dumb muscle?”

“I was gonna say the smart muscle.”

She smiles to herself.  “Flatterer.  All right.  Yes, he’s had some trouble with sleepwalking, back before our daughter was born.  You going to tell me why that question occurred to you?”

Her office is dark this late at night.  She’s supposed to be asleep already, but she’d wanted to finish revising the training regimen for their SPARTAN members with the new data Alpha had forwarded to her.  Getting ONI to release anything about the treatments the SPARTANs had was like pulling fucking teeth, even for someone with _her_ level of clearance.  She’d had to jump through an entire lightyear’s worth of hoops just to get her hands on Maine’s unedited service file.  Reading it in the near-dark might be seen as a little bit creepy to some people, but she just _had_ to review his history before she updated his training outline.

The atmosphere of her office doesn’t explain the chill that slips down her spine when Alpha mutters, “Lately I’ve been losing time and I don’t know where I go.”

The Instructor leans forward in her chair, gripping the wheels.  “I’m not the person you should be reporting this to.”

“I know,” he says again, his voice soft with secrecy.  “I don’t want to tell the Director.”

Rubber creaks beneath her hands when she squeezes.  _Shit._ “Why?”

Alpha doesn’t speak for such a long time she wonders if he’d logged off before he whispers, “Because I don’t know for sure what he’ll do to me when he finds out.”

Looks like she won’t be saving this conversation after all.


End file.
